The Totally Random Vamp
by Mr Trick
Summary: Set just before season 5. A mystery vamp arrives in Sunnydale to settle old scores. His erratic behaviour leads everyone to believe he's crazy but Spike knows different. When Buffy gets involved Spike is forced to decide whether to help the slayer or kill


The Totally Random Vamp  
  
There was an eerie silence as the die was cast. It took what seemed like an eternity to reach the ground, the impact creating minature clouds of dust. The green cube tumbled, zigzagging across the warehouse floor, each haphazard step smaller than the last. Finally it stopped. The face staring skyward had two white eyes.  
  
"And just what the hell was that?"  
  
  
  
The questioner snarled, his mountainous brow cast shadows across his face, fangs glinting in the half light. He was flanked by two colleagues of similar demeanour, slightly smaller but no less intimidating to the average person.  
  
But the person before them was a lifetime away from average.  
  
"That was to determine how I feel about your little proposition." He spoke slowly, almost detached, as if deep in thought.  
  
He was tall, well over six feet, and of a heavy, though not muscular, build. Dark hair hung loosely around his face, a face that would have been boyishly handsome were it not for those same demonic features marring his appearance.  
  
Buffy watched, crouching in the shadows, her stake gripped tightly and poised to strike.  
  
But she didn't. Something, curiosity perhaps, urged her to refrain. Vampires, for all of their faults, usually showed some notion of brotherhood or at the very least some recognition that they were of the same kin. That they were born of the same bond of blood. The atmosphere was different here.  
  
The larger vampire didn't share their aura of evil. Buffy wasn't exactly getting positive vibes either, there was none of the heroic nobility possessed by Angel, it was more like a vacuum, a complete absence of any indication of intent, a cold neutrality that was inconsistent with the blacks and whites that she was used to.  
  
The lead vamp stepped forward, his brow creased into a frown. "So Rhinehart, how did the dice tell you to react?" There was a thinly disguised challenge in his tone. His cronies sneered arrogantly.  
  
Their arrogance ended abruptly when their leader sailed gracefully over their heads as if hit by a wrecking ball. Rhinehart stood, huge and imposing, his fists clenched into hammers. "Anger." He stated softly.  
  
The battle was furious, most of the fury coming from the one they called Rhinehart. Buffy watched transfixed as the larger vamp tore a swathe through his opponents in a whirlwind of blows. The girl was teetering on confusion but she resisted any impulse to intervene. She had come here to slay these vampires herself, she had just been beaten to it.  
  
And then it was over. Three figures lay inert on the dusty warehouse floor.  
  
Rhinehart was suddenly placid, his movements completely devoid of the fury that had gripped him just seconds ago.  
  
Buffy looked on as he bent down to stake the vamps and was surprised when he merely picked up the green die, dusted it lightly with thick fingers, and let it fall to the floor, concentrating intently upon the result.  
  
From her vantage point the Slayer was unable to see what it showed but was slightly more than surprised when Rhinehart scooped up the translucent cube and walked out of the door without looking back.  
  
Now Buffy was forced to act. She leapt into the centre of the warehouse and staked each of the figures in quick succession, their implosions mingling with the dusty floor. But what of the larger vamp? She hesitated, trying to comprehend the mixed signals. By the time she stepped out into the night he was gone.  
  
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"And he showed no intention of killing them at all?" Giles asked pushing his glasses up to the bridge of his nose.  
  
"Apart from the fact that they're already dead." Interjected Anya and then quickly, "Well they are."  
  
"And the fact that he beat the living snot out of them" Xander added.  
  
"That was the wierd thing." Buffy responded, "One minute he was all fire and brimstone, the next he was Mr I-don't-care."  
  
Willow chimed in, "Why would a vampire want to hurt other vampires? That's unheard of."  
  
The assembled group looked at her.  
  
"Apart from Angel of course."  
  
Still looking.  
  
"And Spike." She corrected herself.  
  
"Willow does have a point." Said Giles, "In the demon world it is certainly unusual for like to attack like." He paused. "They usually leave that to us humans."  
  
Buffy stood and began pacing. Well they seemed to be arguing over a dice...."  
  
"Die." Giles cut in. "Dice is plural. I think you'll find that the singular term is die."  
  
Buffy glared but continued, "There seemed to be some kind of negotiation going on but before and after the fight he threw a dice."  
  
"Die."  
  
"Giles!" Buffy snapped, "Stop being so...English!"  
  
"Well it is our bloody language." He countered with a hint of an apology.  
  
"My point is that he seemed to be using it for something."  
  
"Maybe he just forgot the roulette wheel and deck of cards?" Xander couldn't help himself. Anya nudged him hard in the ribs and then smiled at Buffy. The high pitched whistling of the kettle summoned Giles to the kitchen.  
  
" This guy was different." Buffy went on, "He seemed really detached until he threw the DIE." Buffy shouted this last word so that Giles could hear. There was a muted 'quite right' from the kitchen. "Then he starts swinging like he's front row at an Ozzy Osbourne concert."  
  
"Ozzy's a really big fave with vampires I hear." Willow interjected.  
  
"Kinda like Liza Minelli with drag queens." Xander added.   
  
"Is Ozzy a vamp?" Willow thought aloud. "He does eat bats after all."  
  
"Don't be silly Willow," Anya responded, "Just because he's all heavy metal, wearing black and choc full of dubious religious imagery does not make him a vampire.   
  
He's a demon. Common knowledge." She thought then added, "But I think his wife may be.."  
  
"Can we get back to the point in hand?" Giles reappeared sipping a cup of tea and wearing a stern expression. "Please go on Buffy."  
  
Willow, Xander and Anya swapped looks and raised eyebrows.  
  
"Well that's just it." Buffy continued. "There isn't anything more. It's like he just switched off, became detached again once the job was done. One more throw of the die and he's outta there."  
  
"Are you sure it was a die he was throwing?" Tara asked. "I mean it may have been a rune stone or some sort of divination artefact."  
  
"Or a part of some spell or ritual." Added Willow, pleased to be contributing something meaningful this time.  
  
Giles nodded thoughtfully. Well whatever it was it appears that this vampire was using it to dictate his actions in some way. He paused and took another sip of the steaming tea, "or perhaps his actions dictated the throw of the die, or whatever it was. It certainly warrants more research."  
  
"I used to know a demon who tossed a coin to decide his victims." Anya piped up with a smile.  
  
"You mean he used the element of fate to decide who he would kill?"  
  
"Oh no," Anya said earnestly, "it was a very sharp coin, he tossed it, if it hit you then you were a victim." Another smile while those around her seethed, groaned inwardly or generally cursed themselves for previously hoping that there was anything helpful coming from Anya's lips.  
  
"Thanks Anya." Xander intoned with a barely detectable wisp of sarcasm.  
  
Buffy stood. She had found a die in Giles' desk and, until now, had been staring at it contemplatively. She tossed it into the air and caught it on the back of her hand. "There was one other thing." She said, "They called him Rhinehart. Does that ring any bells?"  
  
Giles sipped, thought and then sipped again. "None whatsoever." He said.  
  
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The girl screamed. She had been screaming for what seemed like forever but in the absence of any better ideas, screaming was all she had.  
  
  
  
The creature before her didn't mind the screaming at all. In fact it quite enjoyed it.  
  
It was large and heavily muscled, covered in leathery green skin with two visciously curved horns protruding from it's forehead. It grinned with perfect malevolence, exposing rows of jagged yellow teeth.  
  
"What...what are you?" The girl sobbed.  
  
"He's a fiarl demon." Rhinehart answered.  
  
The demon spun, a deep growl escaping it's lips.  
  
"You have no business here vampire."  
  
Rhinehart's cold dead eyes regarded the fiarl with impassion, his feet planted shoulder width apart. Between them lay a die. A hiss rolled over the vampire's fangs. "I beg to differ." He replied.  
  
With a roar like a thunderclap the creatures launched at each other and the battle was joined.  
  
The girl was paralyzed by fear, lying amongst the refuse of the alley that could have been her grave. Part of her still tried to believe that this was not real, that it couldn't be happening as the behemoths clashed before her. She closed her eyes, screwed them tight until colours flashed in the blackness behind her eyelids. She opened them slowly. It was still happening.  
  
Hammer blows reigned from both sides. The fiarl was immensely strong, stronger than his opponent, but the vampire was relentless, prepared, even eager it seemed, to die in this battle. That proved to be the difference. After a particularly heavy blow to the ribs the fiarl decided that, win or lose, the prize was not worth risking further harm and loped angrily away promising swift vengeance as it disappeared from sight.  
  
Rhinehart stood, genuinely surprised that he was still alive or an approximation thereof. Blood flowed steadily from his nose and his left eye was swollen shut. He took scant moments to recover his composure before staggering over to where the die lay, unmoved from its original position. Slumping to his knees he gathered it into a bleeding fist.  
  
The fiarl's captive had, rather shakily, clambered to her feet and now approached her saviour with tentative steps. She had been saved from a monster by a monster. What could she say in this situation?  
  
"Thank you", seemed the only appropriate thing.  
  
In between rasping breaths the cube fell from the vampires fingers to the concrete floor. He paused momentarily.  
  
"Thanks are not necessary." A large hand clamped around the girls ankle with deceptive speed. She yelped involuntarily. "Because it would appear that my business here..." Rhinehart slowly turned to gaze upon her, his face painted hate with predator's eyes.  
  
"..is you."  
  
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Buffy walked briskly, the chill night air doing little to clear her head.  
  
She stopped abruptly next to a large bush and thrust her hand into the foliage with some purpose. When she retracted it she was holding a rather surprised vampire by the scruff of the neck.  
  
"What are you doing Spike?" Demanded the Slayer.  
  
The blond vampire shook himself free, annoyed at being man handled so impudently. "Can't a bloke have a quiet smoke in this town?" An unlit cigarette hung loosely from his lips like an exclamation mark.  
  
"A 'bloke' can but you seem to forget Spike, that you are not a 'bloke'" Buffy spat, "At best you are an ex-bloke, at worst you are an annoying pain in my ass." She glared momentarily before the anger oozed away from her with a sigh. "And I have other things I could be worrying about right now."  
  
"Oh, you mean Rhinehart?" Spike remarked casually.  
  
Buffy stopped, frozen in the moment, jaw slightly agape. "YOU WERE EAVESDROPPING!" She fumed.  
  
Spike pause for a lengthy second before nonchalantly lighting the cigarette, cupping it as the flame met tobacco. He took a leisurely drag and exhaled the smoke.  
  
"Maybe." He said. "And maybe I just know that the Dice Vamp is in town. Maybe I know why he's here." He took another drag. Indigo smoke drifted away in the gentle night breeze.  
  
Spike promptly turned up his collar against the cold and walked away down the street.  
  
Buffy was incredulous. "What?" She said to no one but she quickly gathered what he was doing. The mind game was taking a turn against her. She decided to play along.  
  
"Spike...Spike wait." Buffy jogged the few paces required to catch up with the wiry englishman. He stopped, eyebrows raised, inviting a question.  
  
"Spike, what do you know about Rhinehart?"  
  
"Maybe something, maybe nothing."  
  
"This isn't a game Spike." She admonished. "Lives could be at risk."  
  
The vampire tilted his head, a wry smile creeping across his lips. "I'm sorry....." He started cockily. "but you have dialled 1800-DONT GIVE-A-CRAP. Please replace the handset and call someone who cares."  
  
Buffy's shoulder's slumped. Maybe he didn't know anything and this was just another game of oneupmanship. She sighed. "Spike." Her eyes implored him. "Please....." She tailed off.  
  
The man noted her change in demeanour and softened. He took another drag and nodded. "Your little study group wont find anything on Rhinehart. He's too recent, not even three decades old." He tilted his head and blew a jet of smoke away from the Slayer. "But he's dangerous." Spike paused for a second then added, "Very."  
  
"So another psycho vampire hits the streets of Sunnydale. What's so different about this one?"  
  
"The fact that he's definately not psycho." The vampire answered. "But he just may be insane."  
  
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An alarm wailed in the background, broken glass crunching underfoot as passers-by turned into onlookers. The policeman stood resolute, nodding slowly as he took notes. The middle aged woman jabbered hysterically while waving her hands in seemingly random directions.  
  
"He...he stole a $400 dress, a four..hundred..dollar...." She trailed off then added with a vocal surge, "It was from our Summer Shades collection." There was more gesticulation which may have been indicating a style. The officer's eyes flickered from his pad.  
  
"But...but the really wierd thing was...." her voice faltered, embarrassed to utter the following words. " he tried it on first."  
  
This grabbed the policeman's attention, "What?"   
  
"He smashed down the door, I was terrified, ..and..and then he asked me what colour I thought would go with his shoes." The woman shrugged, noting the incomprehension on the officer's face.  
  
"What?!" Was all he could manage.  
  
"I think there was something wrong with his mind."  
  
In the absence of any other ideas, the officer nodded. "You say he was over six feet tall?"  
  
"Oh definately. About six three. And big too"  
  
"And he had dark hair.." The officer paused to check his notes, "..in the style of Hugh Grant?"  
  
"The saleswoman nodded enthusiastically, "In 'Four Weddings'....not his recent stuff with the short hair, he doesn't look nearly as cute now he's lost that floppy look. I do like Hugh Grant. I wonder if all englishmen are like that?"  
  
"Riiiiight." The officer tapped his pad and decided he had heard enough. " Before I leave ma'am, was there anything else that you can tell me about this man?"  
  
She thought for a moment, running a painted nail along her jaw. "You know, before he left he turned and smiled at me. He had very large teeth."  
  
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"Well what's that supposed to mean?" Buffy questioned. "Don't come across all enigmatic now. You're not Hugh Grant you know."  
  
" What I mean is ..." Spike had been trying to come across all enigmatic. It worked with most people. But then, he reminded himself, Buffy was not most people. "He's different. He's completely deconstructed his personality. He makes all of his decisions based on the roll of a dice."  
  
"Die." Corrected Buffy. "Dice is the plural term."  
  
The vampire shrugged dismissively, "Whatever." He removed the cigarette and continued through the indigo smoke drifting from his lips, "The point is that everything that we do is based upon complex behaviour patterns that we've built up throughout our lives. Rhinehart has basically tossed these patterns aside. He's starting afresh. By making all of his decisions on the roll of a die any preconceptions about things are ignored. Only what the die tells him is important."  
  
Buffy clouded, "This is starting to sound a little like Psych 101, but ..why? Why would he do that?"  
  
"Look at it this way." Spike fixed her with a gaze. "Have you ever thought of doing something a little crazy? A little dark perhaps? Something totally out of character?" Suddenly the distance between them seemed very small indeed. The Slayer nodded instinctively.  
  
"But why don't you do it?" Spike continued, "Why don't you take the chance, get a little crazy, say 'to hell with it'?"  
  
"Because when I say 'to hell with it' things have a nasty habit of going to hell. I have responsibilities that I can't ignore."  
  
"Exactly!" The vampire cut in, jabbing his finger in the young woman's direction. Cigarette smoke zig zagging hazily. "You are sensible and proper and responsible and all of those other things that you think you should be. You'd never do something dark." A pause. He flicked the butt, orange spiralling momentarily into the darkness. "Even if it wanted to do you."  
  
Buffy raised an eyebrow. Spike continued unabated." Even if ten percent of you wanted to do something crazy, the other ninety percent that contains all of those values and morals and all of that crap would never let you do it. Ever. Not Rhinehart though. His impulses, his urges are all given an option on the die. Whatever number comes up, he does. It's that simple.  
  
When he feeds, if he feeds, if he kills, if he saves. All decided on the roll of one little cube.   
  
Life by numbers." Spike sucked his cheeks exposing sharp cheekbones. " I've seen him go for three weeks without feeding. Just because the die told him to."  
  
Buffy was quizzical and more than a little intrigued that a vampire could show such strength of will. Even Angel never resisted feeding completely. "So he didn't want to feed at all for three weeks?"  
  
"Of course he wanted to bloody feed, like Oprah at an all-you-can-eat buffet, but the die wouldn't let him. It denied his urges." The blond vamp smiled, "Personally, I like urges. I'm an urge kinda guy." He raised his eyebrows with a hint of suggestion that Buffy may or may not have detected. "But Rhinehart would never disobey the dice. It never even occurred to him. What's the point in doing it if you're only going to obey the decisions you like? It kind of nullifys the whole thing really."  
  
"What's the point of doing it at all?" Buffy asked, hands on her hips, "It's just another way of avoiding responsibility, of not having to make the same choices and accept the same consequences as everyone else in this world. It's cowardice, the rest is just window dressing."  
  
Spike shook his head slightly. "It's freedom. Total freedom. He recreates himself with every roll of the die. He's not restricted by convention, morals, law, even the hunger for blood. Only numbers. He's totally random."  
  
Buffy frowned softly, "So how do you know all this? What's your connection with this totally random vamp? You two buddies discuss psychology over a virgin or two?"  
  
Spike hardened visibly. "No. And we're not buddies." He stated definitely. "I ran into him at a poker game in New York in the late seventies. We played for money back then - kittens were in short supply. He was intriguing, using the die to place his bet. I admired his recklessness, we got talking and I realised that it wasn't recklessness, just a chain of seperate events, unrelated to the last. To the observer the overall impression was that he was crazy but when you realise that each decision was uninformed by the previous one then it made sense. Sort of."  
  
"Extremely sort of" Added Buffy deliberately ignoring the kitten remark. "What happened?"  
  
"He started betting big, too big. Maybe the die had told him to experience losing, I don't know, but he was losing more than he could afford and the guys we were playing with weren't exactly schoolgirls. It looked like it was going to turn really ugly really quick so I made my excuses and left. Saw him around a couple of times after that then he dropped out of sight. I figured he'd bitten off more than he could chew."  
  
The Slayer pondered on this information for a few seconds before reaching a decision. "You know, I don't need to know his philosophy. I just need to know why he's dangerous and where he is."  
  
Spike nearly choked, "Why he's dangerous? Bloody hell girl have you not been listening?  
  
He's totally random, which makes him completely unpredictable. He can be ruthless, merciless without remorse. He can change from humble to viscious in the time it takes to roll a die. One minute he's saving kittens the next he's feeding off babies. He's your best friend and your worst enemy. You never know what he'll do next. With most of us you know where you stand but he's not just another vampire Buffy and you'd be a fool to treat him like one." Spike stopped. It was apparent that there was more to this than he was letting on. Buffy said nothing. Spike looked at the floor. "He's a sodding liability."  
  
With that he turned to leave. 'Shows over, roll the credits' Buffy thought but the vampire spun sharply on his heel and faced her. "And I'll tell you something else for free," he said. "This isn't a coincidence. He's here for a reason."  
  
He whirled, leather coat billowing with the motion, and strode briskly away.  
  
Buffy sighed, "...not just another vampire." She said to no one in particular.  
  
Spike rounded the corner and stopped, fumbling in his pockets for a cigarette. 'I've said too much' he thought. 'Why? Am I trying impress her? Or warn her?'  
  
"Why do I care?" he said to no one in particular.  
  
He lit up and as the smoke pooled at the back of his throat, reflected on what he'd told her and then on the thing that he hadn't. He knew why Rhinehart was here. And what he wanted.  
  
It was getting cold. He walked faster.  
  
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End file.
